Mon:04-17-06
Interview: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Story by Stephen M. Deusner Springing hype-first from the early-decade New York scene, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have steadily built up a large and devoted audience over the course of a few years and a few releases. Their second full-length, Show Your Bones, was one of the most anticipated rock releases of 2006, especially after early rumors spread that it would be a concept album about the lead singer's cat, Coco Beware. Despite wildly divergent reviews that have either praised the band for focusing its songwriting or criticized them for diluting their assault, the album sold more than 50,000 copies in its first week, quadrupling the first-week sales of Fever to Tell and debuting just outside the Billboard top 10. Frontwoman Karen O talked to Pitchfork before Show Your Bones hit stores, before the reviews were filed, and before the sales were tallied.
Pitchfork: I guess my first question-- what everyone wants to know-- is what happened to Coco Beware?
Karen O: Oh right. She's really happy. She's gotten bigger, a little bit fatter. But she hasn't really chilled out that much as far as her personality goes. She's really on blast, you know? And she's living comfortably in an apartment in Chinatown in New York City with my best friend. Doing a little bit of follow up?
Pitchfork: Yeah, serious news. Anyway, on the new record, there's more sound to it. Are you getting away from the three-person set-up, the more basic sound?
O: Yeah, the motive of songwriting shifted gears from tape to computer. We wrote this album on ProTools and that opened up infinite tracks-- nonlinear songwriting, you know, to the max. And really the sky's the limit with that kind of thing. And that was probably one of the most difficult things for us to do as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It was like a real full-on challenge for us, but it seemed worth exploring because it would be hard not to sound really similar to what we sounded like before without working that way.
Pitchfork: I did notice there seems to be a more purposeful quality to the music.
O: Yeah. I mean, I think more focused, too. Because a lot has happened since the last album was written, and actually a lot has happened in the last year of my life. I guess not being or doing anything really with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. A lot of changes occurred to me as an artist as a person.
Pitchfork: What sorts of changes?
O: One of the most major was moving away from my friends and family, from the East Coast to the West Coast. Kinda plucking myself out of this context that I'd related to all my life and plopping myself into this other context that was much more difficult to relate to. And not only that, but being really isolated out here, you know? And having to really kinda slow down. A me-versus-me situation arose. Being too distracted by all the things and people and family and stuff that was usually surrounding me, and also all the distractions of New York City, just led to a quieter, slower, much more lonely place.
Pitchfork: Where are you?
O: Los Angeles. The desert, man.
Pitchfork: You seemed, especially in the beginning when you were building a lot of buzz, a very local band. And I know you were touring a lot, touring internationally, and I wonder if getting out of that geographically and culturally locked place opened up songwriting, or how the band performs or relates to each other.
O: Without a doubt, yeah. One of the biggest catalysts for change in us as a band was going from being a really local f*ck-all kinda band, you know, to all the hype and attention and everyone was taking us seriously. That was like the biggest catalyst for us having an identity crisis back in the day, being a band that didn't take itself too seriously to having people all over the world take us seriously.
Pitchfork: I know certain aspects of the band and your sound and your persona crystallized after that. Did you feel any need to live up to or actively thwart expectations? Or did you feel any expectations?
O: The best way I can answer that question is saying mostly I have expectations of myself, what's going on with me as person in my life, my likes and dislikes. The new album is reflective of who we are as people now, and that's why it probably sounds so different from what we were doing before. We're all different now.
Pitchfork: Did you feel the need to write any stuff like "Maps" or did you feel a need to get away from that more open sound?
O: Um, no. I think that if anything, I was feeling a little bit more aversion to the more rockish, noisy, kinda histrionic vocals, because I wasn't relating to it as a 27-year-old or 26-year-old as well as I did when I was 21 or 22. And I felt like the angst fizzled out when we were writing this album, and it was more kinda like a brewing sort of...I don't know what it was. But it definitely seeped into [the songs] and transformed into something else. It's still purposeful, but obviously it's in a different form.
Pitchfork: It sounds a little less confrontational and a little more confessional.
O: Yeah. It's like talking about your diary entry. It is a little more confessional. That's where I was at. My friend, he can coin a phrase in a second, you know? The way he put it-- and this is kinda the way I feel about it-- was, the first album was like, We're gonna f*ck you up. And then this album is like, Don't f*ck with us.
Pitchfork: I could see that.
O: Yeah. It still does have certain confrontational aspects to it, but they're not so directly confrontational.
Pitchfork: Reading about the last one, a lot of fans and critics noted a difference between Karen O and Karen Orzalek. They assumed the louder, more out-there numbers were Karen O, the persona, and the more personal numbers were Karen Orzalek. Is that even accurate? Do you feel like you write from two different perspectives, the persona and the real person?
O: No, I think...hmm, okay. Let me just think about it for a second. I wouldn't say that only the softer ballad side of me is who I actually am, as opposed to the more confrontational, irreverent side. They're both interwoven. It's not like one is acting and the other is for real. Both are what appeared and came out from the first performance we ever did to the last one, and I'm not exactly sure where it comes from and I can't ever actually predict what's going to come out. Both of them come from their respective places inside of me, but I think they are just two sides of the same personality. But one wouldn't exist without the other. They balance each other out.
Pitchfork: Who was it that made you think, I want to do that. I want to be up on stage?
O: Michael Jackson. Definitely. That was a big one when I was a kid. I really liked his quirkiness. I think that really appealed to my sensibility when I was young. And then when I started seeing bands when I was in high school, there were a bunch of local New Jersey punk bands, and that was fascinating to me. There were 15-year-olds and 14-year-olds and these bands playing at the VFW. That scene was run by the kids for the kids, and that was really exciting to me. And then when I would go into the studio. I would go see Blonde Redhead and stuff like that. When I was 16 or 17, it was Cat Power. And it really made me feel like, wow maybe this is something I could try on my own.
The album that really convinced me that I could sing was On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel. Jeff Mangum sings his heart out, and I think the most appealing singers to me are the ones who are really singing their heart out and it's like their heart is going to burst. About a year after that was when I learned how to play guitar, and I started writing music when I was 19.
And then there have been a lot of influences from the oldies. I'm a big fan of Sam Cooke and the Crystals. Lesley Gore. And all those people. Freddie Mercury. I'm all over the place. These are all people I think about when I think about music.
Pitchfork: I wanted to ask you about the band and your connection with your fans. Nick Zinner did his book [I Hope You Are All Happy Now, a book of tour photography published in August 2005 by St. Martin's Press]. You use a lot of inclusive pronouns, and I pick up a few moments on the new album when you could be talking to or for the audience. Can you tell me a little about how you see your fans and that relationship?
O: I really think a lot about youth and my own experiences as a fan when I'm writing, when I'm projecting, or when I'm expressing myself. I know the gamut of feelings I was running when I was a fan, and I'm really sensitive to that in our own audience. I don't know, it's just like since I was a kid, I was always thinking of giving back, the whole concept of giving back, you know. If you get this, if you're in a position where you can give back somehow, how are you gonna do it? And I think that will make its way into everything I do artistically. I really think about that. It's a preoccupation of mine.
I really care about that feeling you get when you listen to a song that you love and when you think about that. It's the magic of music. I don't know. It's important to me to try to represent myself and the music as something hopefully that people can take ownership of and interpret for themselves. It can liberate them or empower them or whatever. That's just an important thing to me.
And I appreciate when the fans give back, too. That's what that whole flag thing was like to me. It's wild. It's a trip to see what all they came up with. It's like a dialogue instead of a one-way street. I'm telling them, and they're telling me.
Pitchfork: The flags?
O: We had a contest for the artwork for our album. It was a flag contest, where we had them make a flag for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We had something like 500 entries from all over the world, and they're all in the artwork for the new album. It was incredible. The creativity and zeal of our fans was amazing. I think we used every single one of them.
the EPs and Fever to Tell, but the new disc has left me wanting. It isn't bad per se, but apart from a few tracks like Phenomena, I'm not feeling the urgency of the earlier releases. I miss the snarl of Rich and Man and the heat of Date With the Night.
gold lion is very tegan and sara-ish
